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Gig Harbor Now and Then | Gig Harbor Garage was the area’s first car dealership

The previous Gig Harbor Now and Then column gave the answers to four questions concerning early local telephones. One question that was not asked or answered last time concerns how to cope with one of today’s internet providers on the Gig Harbor and Key peninsulas, CenturyLink.

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Having had multiple extensive, unwanted, unsatisfying, and unfathomably bad experiences with the company, I have finally figured out what works best for me. After trying everything I can think of to get a neighborhood service outage repaired, without success (although they keep sending me a bill every month — it is their policy, they told me, to not discuss any adjustments to customers’ bills until AFTER service is restored (!), even though they have not provided ANY internet service in months), I finally made a breakthrough. I discovered that for me, at least, the best and most productive way to deal with CenturyLink is to put a galvanized steel bucket over my head and beat on it with a stick for an hour.

Just like calling Customer Service (a sadistically misleading name if ever there was one), it doesn’t restore service, accomplishes absolutely nothing, wastes an incredible amount of time, but at least the resulting headache is less severe.

The company isn’t being more commonly called CenturyStink by a growing legion of long-suffering customers for nothing. The ever-increasing smell is from the rotting corpses of customers’ dead and dying dreams of someday regaining service.

Back to questions and answers

Anyway, two of the questions from our last column also concerned Gig Harbor’s first two automobile dealerships. They asked what the telephone numbers were of the two dealerships, but didn’t reveal anything else about them. That made it logical to ask some general questions about the car dealerships, which we did. Each question was a four-fer.

The first question, logically enough, concerned the first dealership.

What was the name of Gig Harbor’s first automobile dealership, where was it located, what year did it start, and what make of cars did it sell?

Answer: The Gig Harbor Garage. It was located in an old general store building on the waterfront at the north end of Gig Harbor. It was started in May 1919 by a 29-year-old man named Wilder Green. (Wouldn’t it be cool if he had a pale brother named Les Green?) At first they advertised two makes of automobiles, Ford and Overland. If you had a telephone, you could call them by dialing 1 … no, actually the telephones didn’t have dials back then. You called the operator and asked to be connected with the number 1.

Gig Harbor’s first automobile dealership was located in an old general store building on the waterfront at the north end of Gig Harbor. Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer aerial base map.

The first advertisements for the Gig Harbor Garage featured Ford and Overland automobiles. This ad from the May 23, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

The second advertisement for Overland cars at the Gig Harbor Garage didn’t come out quite right. This ad from the May 30, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

Other arrangements were already in the works, for just one month later the name of the business had changed to the Gig Harbor Sales Co., and they were advertising not only Ford and Overland cars, but Beeman garden tractors and walking engines, Michelin tires, and Standard Motor Trucks as well.

Wilder Green was ramping up his business rapidly from the very beginning. This ad from the July 11, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

By September they had added Fairbanks Morse engines and machinery to their list of products. They had also gone back to the name Gig Harbor Garage.

Less than four months after it opened, the dealership had changed names twice. This ad from the September 12, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

New competition

The Gig Harbor Garage was not the only automobile dealership in Gig Harbor for long. Before it had even opened, a competitor was being organized.

A mysterious ad campaign had been launched in the April 25 issue of The Bay-Island News. It featured two question marks flanking an exclamation point in an otherwise empty box. The next ad, in May, was of a single question mark in an equally otherwise empty box.

These ads from the April and May, 1919, Bay-Island News were found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

After three weeks of the single question mark, it was moved to the top, an exclamation point was put near the bottom, and the cryptic “‘He Profits Most Who Serves Best’ G.&S.,” was added, which is more a statement of business philosophy than a sales pitch. It ran for five weeks in that configuration.

This ad from the June 20, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

That brings us to the second question, another four-fer.

What was the name of Gig Harbor’s second automobile dealership, where was it located, what year did it start, and what make of cars did it sell?

Answer: Gaidosh & Secor. It was located just a short way down the street from the Gig Harbor Garage, on the hill side of the road. They put up a brand new building at the corner of today’s North Harborview Drive and Burnham Drive. With a half-page ad in The Bay-Island News, 22-year-old Mike Gaidosh and Hubert Secor, 27, announced they were open for business on Aug. 1, 1919. Like the Gig Harbor Garage, they too sold Ford cars. They also carried Buick automobiles, GMC Trucks, and Goodyear and Thermoid tires.

Gig Harbor’s second automobile dealership was launched with this advertisement in the August 1, 1919, Bay-Island News. It was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

Gig Harbor’s second automobile dealership was located in a new building on the corner of present-day North Harborview Drive and Burnham Drive at the north end of Gig Harbor. Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer aerial base map.

Gaidosh & Secor quickly expanded into a stage line and taxi service, including adding that they had “Cars For Hire Day or Night” in their second newspaper advertisement. Their phone number was changed from 10 to 12 in the same ad.

This ad from the August 8, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater, Washington.

Note: The rapid expansion of Gig Harbor’s first two automobile dealerships was a sign of the heady days for business after the end of WW1. Nobody knew there was going to be a punishing national economic depression in 1920.

Just three weeks after opening, Gaidosh & Secor began advertising “honest overhauling.” Just like the Gig Harbor Garage, they were expanding quickly.

Early automobiles needed complete engine rebuilds on short schedules unheard of today. Gaidosh & Secor vowed to be honest with overhauling. This ad from the August 22, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

Just as his partnership business with Hubert Secor was becoming established, Mike Gaidosh took a bride. As if that itself isn’t a big step to take, his life was about to change in other ways too, and soon.

This clip reporting that Mike Gaidosh had married Alice Clogson, from the October 10, 1919, Bay-Island News, was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

Here’s the interesting twist to the Gaidosh & Secor story. Ten days after Mike Gaidosh got married, the company ran its last ad in The Bay-Island News. Did they know at the time it was their last ad?

Eleven weeks after announcing the opening of Gaidosh & Secor, the company ran its last newspaper ad. The telephone number had changed back to the original 10. This clip from the October 17, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

They probably did know it was their last ad. On a different page in the same issue was the announcement that Mike Gaidosh had left the business and moved to Tacoma with his new wife.

This short news clip from the October 17, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

Just one week later they published in The Bay-Island News a dissolution notice stating the termination of their business partnership. The automobile dealership of Gaidosh & Secor had operated just over two months.

The Gaidosh and Secor partnership didn’t last. This short news clip from the October 24, 1919, Bay-Island News was found at the Washington State Library in Tumwater.

No advertisements for Hubert Secor’s sole proprietorship were found during the preparation of this story, although the auto repair part continued at least into 1920. In the early spring of that year Buick and GMC Truck sales were being handled by Mitchell Skansie, not Secor, on the west side of Gig Harbor. Perhaps Secor concentrated on his stage line instead of continuing to sell cars.

A better record

While the Gaidosh & Secor dealership didn’t last beyond a few months, the Gig Harbor Garage had an impressive life. It moved twice and changed ownership and names several times, continuing on for more than sixty years. (Hmm, maybe somebody ought to do a story on it.)

Item of Mystery

Clue number too-many-already to the identity of the Gig Harbor Now and Then Item of Mystery is: In their original application, 160 of these were used at a time.

Next time

There is no local history question of the week this time because of the length of the next Gig Harbor Now and Then column, on March 10. It will talk about three words: homestead, homesteader, and homesteading. Why? Because there is a good deal of confusion over the word homestead, and to understand early Peninsula history, it’s necessary to erase that confusion. At least that’s what we’re going to attempt to do.

Greg Spadoni, February 24, 2025